RyanOConnor

PHLondoner

I think location must matter. They don't want to flood the market with these cards in places where they'll become too common, thus damaging the exclusivity factor. If you're in NYC and every Wall Street-er is paying for dinner at Le Bernardin w/ a black card it loses the exclusivity luster. The reality is, just based on wealth aggregations - if they have a quota of Centurions per year based solely on high level spends, then 98% will go to coastal elite cities b/c, well, that's where most rich people live. I'm sure they want to smatter them around the country so it logically makes sense that they may have different spend thresholds for someone living in Des Moines vs. someone in living in Manhattan Beach.

stimpy

No, location doesn't matter. And no, you don't have to be rich to have a Centurion card. At least not in the US.

PHLondoner

How do you know?

fliesdelta

I don't know about the location being relevant or not, but on the "being rich" part, while I'm comfortable, my income (and therefore spend) isn't in the millions.

stimpy

You could read some of the Centurion threads here over the last 19 years. But briefly if you spend other peoples money on your Platinum card, you yourself can get it upgraded to Centurion. And once you have it, you have it. Rich or poor, as long as you keep paying the annual fee.

PHLondoner

OK?

Unless I'm wrong, the facts are: 1) They seem to have a certain number of Cent invites per year - these invites seem to be curated and not spammed out left and right. And 2) No one really fully understands why or how these invites are allotted as - evidenced here - a lot of posters have totally different engagement stories.

So - that begs the question - why are there such different engagement stories/ criteria for a Cent offer? I'm sure there are dozens of factors involved, and saying location isn't considered at all seems to buck logic. We have one data point from a poster in a mid-tier city (sorry RDU) who claims he received an offer despite significantly smaller spends than other posters from larger cities who aren't getting invites (LA, NYC). Amex knows your spending patterns and locations and I'm sure they'd like to dabble the card out in places like Tampa, RDU, Omaha, Sacramento, Portland, Pittsburgh simply as a logical/exclusivity/prestige marketing tool. SInce none of us really know how these invites are curated, dismissing location as a potential factor outright seems to be hubris.

moe8555

I would think that the amounts required to reach Centurion would lead to a Financial Review for the Average Middle-Class Joe (as in they might run into trouble proving their creditworthiness with Amex using the "spending lots of other people's money" method).

DMSFCA

Agree. Spending $50k+ every month is going to raise some eyebrows unless you have the income to drop $500k a year without cashing in your 401k.

I thought I remembered back in the day they look at what you actually spent the money on. If you were buying those $1 coins that were all the rage a while back or you are Bob in Accounting who buys all the company printers, that's not going to express you into membership.

Plus, Bob from Accounting probably doesn't want to spend $7500 that first year for membership. Having had the card since '99 I've had less than a dozen people ever "recognize it". Keep in mind people don't even see your payment method until the meal is over or you are closing out your tab or whatever. Really, almost nobody notices. A ski rental place in Aspen, a couple of restaurants, an odd retail person, those are the kinds of parting-of-the-seas responses I've received. One asked, "If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for a living?" This is over tens of thousands of transactions.

The whole idea that the chef comes out to meet you with special dishes to try and the women swoon is just hogwash. If anyone really did recognize or care about the card (it seems to have fallen from pop culture now) then it would be as you were walking out the door. I get the "huh, I didn't know they came in black" comment occasionally, to which I reply "Yes, it's for people with really bad credit." One retail guy laughed and said, "If that was true, I'd have one!"

I like the service and the benefits are worthwhile to me but I'm not flashing it to the bouncer so I can get past the velvet ropes at a club. I was in Mexico City once at a hotel bar and a drunk American attorney across the way was holding his card up against his forehead saying "Where are all the hot Mexican ladies?" A proud American moment for sure. Ugh.

RichardMannion

This! Exactly thee same experience over the years, less than a dozen people 'recognize' it.

hawata

Would you want it any other way? I don't think the card is to show off, but for the services....

747FC

I am not saying that those carrying the card do it for vanity, but if it is only about the service, can't one get Centurion services while carrying a card in a green color?

stimpy

It's been mentioned countless times here, but again, Amex in the USA has no idea what your income is. They certainly don't know mine. And I've never even heard of an Amex financial review outside of this forum. When I got a traveling job, I went from spending a few hundred dollars per month to $35K - $50K per month. Nobody blinked. And then Centurion began and I was immediately invited. Again, they only care about your payment history.

It depends on where you go. In Vegas in definitely gets noticed. Other places, less so. Outside of the US it gets noticed almost never. As for pop culture, it still gets mentioned in urban hip hop.

moe8555

I guess there's something to that.. I seem to recall most FRs resulting from returned payments or massive spending with the usual manufactured spending venues (gift cards, supermarkets, etc.).

fliesdelta

Warren Buffet supposedly carries just a green card. Pretty sure he gets better services than whatever Centurion dishes out.